The Russian daily Kommersant reports that at a meeting at the UN on March 12, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to inform Iran that it has one last chance to negotiate and avoid war.
The newspaper said on March 14 that last chance will come next month when Iranian representatives attend six-nation talks, comprising Russia, China, Britain, the U.S., France, and Germany).
Kommersant reported that, during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent visit to the U.S., he told President Barack Obama that Israel expected U.S. support for an attack to cripple Iran's nuclear program. According to the daily, if this support failed to materialize, Netanyahu had let it be known that Obama could expect to lose his support from the Jewish lobby in the U.S. ahead of the country's presidential elections in November.
The article cites unnamed officials in the Russian Defense Ministry as saying Russia is already preparing for the consequences of U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, particularly the possibility that it could unleash a wave of refugees across Iran's northern borders into the Caucasus. |